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San Diego County is considering banning federal immigration agencies from using county firearms training facilities, as two supervisors argued that local firing ranges should not be “a training ground for President Trump’s mass deportation agenda.”
“Our local public facilities serve our residents, not support Federal immigration operations that disregard and trample upon due process and rule of law,” Board Chair Terra Lawson-Remer said at a press conference at the county administration building Monday.
She and Chair Pro Tem Paloma Aguirre called for ending the agreement with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, and Customs and Border Patrol, called CBP.
Their proposal contrasts with a similar debate in Escondido in February, when the city council upheld its contract with the Department of Homeland Security to use the city firing range for immigration enforcement training, despite public condemnation of the agreement.
The supervisors will bring their proposal to a vote before the board Tuesday, arguing that aggressive immigration raids separate families and generate fear.
“Parents are afraid to drop their cool kids off from school, afraid to go to the grocery store, afraid to walk to work: simple moments that should feel safe,” Aguirre said. “And while all of this is happening, ICE and CBP have been training at county firing ranges.”
A series of high-profile raids and arrests have fueled that unease. In May 2025, ICE agents stormed Buona Forchetta restaurant in San Diego, arresting four people and sparking a public outcry. In August last year they detained parents outside schools in Encinitas, Chula Vista and San Diego.
A CalMatters investigation of government data found that immigration arrests surged by 1,500% for May to October compared to the same time period a year earlier.
Immigration authorities removed more than 16,000 people from San Diego County between January 20, 2025 and April 1, 2026, according to figures released by Rep. Mike Levin, a Democrat who represents parts of San Diego and Orange Counties.
Although federal officials have stated that they target immigrants with records of serious crime, Levin said ICE did not disclose how many of the San Diego detainees had criminal convictions.
Those aggressive raids could compromise public safety by deterring some people from reporting crimes or seeking help from law enforcement, supervisors said.
“Providing training grounds for Trump’s deportation force is a slap in the face of our residents and undermines our clear commitment to rule of law and civil rights here in San Diego County,” Lawson-Remer said.
Since 2024, federal immigration agents have logged about 3,350 hours at the San Diego Regional Firearms Training Center in Otay Mesa near the border, according to the county.
The agreements allowing immigration agents to use county firearms facilities were signed in 2021 and generate an estimated $126,780 in revenue, the board letter states. Those contracts were small enough that they were approved by administrators, without a vote by the board of supervisors.
The current proposal would end that contract, as well as use of a separate firing range that the county leases from the U.S. Navy on Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, supervisors said.
“The federal government cannot terrorize our families all week and rent our firing range on the weekend: not on this county, not anymore,” Aguirre said.
Federal immigration agencies did not respond to CalMatters’ questions about the proposal, but the San Diego Union Tribune reported that CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott said in a statement that he was disappointed by the county’s action and anticipated that the loss of training opportunities for agents would lead to longer lines at border crossings and at the San Diego International Airport.
Aguirre disavowed that warning, saying the relatively small contract would have a minimal impact on the agency’s operations. “Lines at San Ysidro would not be a consequence of this board’s actions,” she said. “They would be a choice made by the Trump Administration and paid for by us here in San Diego.”
It’s the latest effort by supervisors to limit county coordination with federal immigration authorities. In January, San Diego County passed the Civil Liberties Enforcement and Accountability Rules ordinance, or CLEAR ordinance, to restrict federal immigration agents from accessing non-public county spaces. That law passed with support from Lawson-Remer, Aguirre, and fellow Democrat, Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe. The two Republican board members, Jim Desmond and Joel Anderson, opposed it.
In June, San Diego County won a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, allowing for health inspections of the Otay Mesa Detention Center, after Lawson-Remer, Aguirre and San Diego County Public Health Officer Sayone Thihalolipavan were denied access to the facility months earlier.
